Contemporary Conversations in Culture, Media and Society – ‘Data Theory: Interpretive Sociology and Computational Methods’ with Professor Simon Lindgren (Umeå University)

Contemporary Conversations in Culture, Media and Society

Data Theory: Interpretive Sociology and Computational Methods

Featuring Professor Simon Lindgren (Umeå University).

The ongoing and intensifying datafication of our societies poses huge challenges as well as opportunities for social science to rethink core elements of its research enterprise. Prominently, there is a pressing need to move beyond the long-standing qualitative/quantitative divide. This talk is an argument towards developing a critical science of data, by bringing together the interpretive theoretical and ethical sensibilities of social science with the predictive and prognostic powers of data science and computational methods.

Simon Lindgren argues that the renegotiation of theories and research methods that must be made in order for them to be more relevant and useful, can be fruitfully understood through the metaphor of hacking social science: developing creative ways of exploiting existing tools in alternative and unexpected ways to solve problems.

Professor Simon Lindgren is Professor of Sociology at Umeå University. His research is about the relationship between digital technologies and society. Lindgren studies the transformative role of digital communication technologies (internet and social media), and the consequences of datafication, algorithms and AI, with a particular focus on politics and power relations. He uses combinations of methods from computational social science and network science, and analytical frameworks from interpretive sociology and critical theory. Lindgren’s books include “Data Theory” (2020), “Digital Media and Society” (2017, 2Ed 2022), and “New Noise” (2013).

Contemporary Conversations in Culture, Media and Society – Data Theory: Interpretive Sociology and Computational Methods with Professor Simon Lindgren

Thursday 17 March 2022, 1600-1800

Held online – if you’d like to come along please sign up on Eventbrite.

This presentation is part of the Contemporary Conversations in Culture, Media and Society seminars hosted by the Centre for Culture, Media & Society (CCMS). Based in the Culture & Creativity Research Institute at Sheffield Hallam University, CCMS delivers critical insights and knowledge on a diversity of cultural, social and media practices. 

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